The turbogear market is a challenging one, therefore, drive systems manufacturer Voith Turbo South Africa’s BHS high-performance turbogear and turbo parallel shaft gear units are designed to meet the uncompromising demands for high quality and reliability.

“These factors play a vital role in achieving high plant availability and extended service performance,” says Voith Turbo South Africa divisional manager for energy, oil and gas, Derain Pillay.

He adds that increasing costs, production and maintaining a competitive edge in the market are on every industry’s list of priorities in today’s environment of depreciating resources.

Voith Turbo South Africa points out that the high quality and reliability of the BHS gearbox range, backed by service excellence, have contributed to the company’s more than 80 years of global success in the mining, power generation, oil and gas, petrochemicals and chemicals production industries.

The BHS gearboxes have a large footprint on the African continent from North Africa to Southern Africa where about 300 BHS gearboxes operate successfully in the mining and oil and gas industries, says Pillay. Voith Turbo South Africa supplies and services the full range of BHS turbogearboxes in these countries.

The BHS gearbox range includes parallel shaft gearboxes, epicyclic, power distribution and integral gearboxes as well as rotor turning gears and diaphragm couplings. Voith Turbo parallel shaft gear units have the capacity to transmit high powers and speeds with high efficiency and are most commonly used to reduce the turbine speed to generator speed for powers up to about 85 MW or turbine speeds up to about 60 000 rpm, notes the company.

“The basis for this capacity is an optimised gear design that is the result of decades of experience and accordance with all current technical guidelines,” explains Pillay.

These well-engineered, high-quality gear units are especially suited to high-speed applications and designed for continuous operation and have proven themselves in many diverse turbomachinery and other applications, states Voith Turbo South Africa.

Voith Turbo is one of the most experienced manufacturers of planetary or epicyclic gear units according to the Stoeckicht principle, says Pillay. With this design, the unsupported sun wheel and radially elastic annulus halves effect an equal load distribution on the planets and this, in turn, produces less wear and tear on the components for extended service life.

Stoeckicht epicyclic gear units are manufactured up to powers of 45 MW, speeds of up to 80 000 rpm and torques of over 550 000 Nm, with single-stage design ratios up to 12:1 and two-stage ratios up to 80:1. The units are used between all typical main engines and output machines within turbotrains.

The BHS integral gearboxes feature standard and flexible designs and accommodate various requirements for power and speed, notes Pillay, adding that the units have the versatility essential to meeting application requirements. These include vent compressors, energy recycling, chemicals and natural gas industries, refrigeration, compressed air plants, gas liquefaction, process compressors and expansion turbines.

Tailor-made to the relevant application and customer specification, integral gear units are designed and manufactured with up to ten compressor stages, total unit weights of more than 40 t and gear pitch wheel diameters of over 3 m.

“We recognise our customers’ determination to improve performance and productivity while reducing energy consumption and costs and to achieve this, the quality and reliability offered by the BHS range are prerequisites,” points out Pillay, highlighting that product quality and reliability are only as good as the supporting levels of service, maintenance, supply and availability of parts.

“We offer the full end-to-end service package to ensure end- users maximum uptime and extended gearbox life,” he concludes.